Can I ask you a question? Why is it that we Christians in America tend to be surprised by the supernatural? Think about what it is that we say we believe. We believe the Bible to be true and supernaturally inspired by God Himself. Because we believe the Bible to be supernaturally inspired, we believe God created all things by the act of His omnipotent will. Because we believe the Bible to be inspired by God, we believe that there was a serpent in the Garden who successfully tempted Adam and Eve to sin, that Satan does indeed exist, as does his legions of demons.
One of my favorite stories about the fight between the Kingdom of Light and the kingdom of darkness is the one found in 2 Kings 19:8-37. We do not have the time to read the entire story, but I do think it is worth pointing out a few things that happened in order to teach how we can respond to the threats of our day. Judah’s king, Hezekiah, received a letter from the king of Assyria that read:
“Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by saying, ‘Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.’ Behold, you yourself have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, destroying them completely. So will you be saved? Did the gods of the nations which my fathers destroyed save them: Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the sons of Eden who were in Telassar?” (2 Kings 19:10–12)
What was Hezekiah’s response? He stood firm against his enemy in the way his great grandfather David encouraged God’s people to do: “Some praise their chariots and some their horses, but we will praise the name of the Lord, our God” (Ps. 20:7). Here is Hezekiah’s response:
Then Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it, and he went up to the house of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord. Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said, “Lord, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, You are the God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Incline Your ear, Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, Lord, and see; and listen to the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to taunt the living God. It is true, Lord; the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, and have hurled their gods into the fire; for they were not gods, but only the work of human hands, wood and stone. So they have destroyed them. But now, Lord our God, please, save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, Lord, are God.” (2 Kings 19:14–19)
God didn’t use Hezekiah’s chariots or horses, but instead, He sent the angel of the Lord and killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. So, when we read stories like that, how is it that we are surprised? When we read Ephesians 6:10-13 and are warned about the demonic realm consisting of rulers, powers, world forces of this darkness, and spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places... how is it that we do not take such warnings as seriously as we ought?
Throughout the gospels we read of Jesus encountering the demonically possessed and how the demons were terrified of Him. We read of the Jewish exorcists in Ephesus who went from place-to-place attempting to mimic the kinds of miraculous things they saw Paul do in the name of Jesus. At one point, in an effort to cast out the demons the Jewish exorcists said: “I order you in the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches!” The evil spirit responded: “I recognize Jesus, and I know of Paul, but who are you?” We are then told that the demon possessed man, “pounced on them and subdued all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded” (see Acts 19:11-16). I wonder if Paul recalled these stories when he wrote, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12).
As we consider Ephesians 6:12-13 this morning, there are two points that we dare not miss. The first is, “Our enemy is spiritual, strategic, and satanic.” The second point is, “Our fight is direct, dangerous, and dogged.”
Our Enemy is Spiritual, Strategic, and Satanic
What Paul wants us to understand is that when it comes to the world that Jesus said would hate us because it hated Him, that our struggle was NOT against flesh and blood. In other words, our enemy does not include those who reject Jesus or embrace the ideologies of this world, but instead our enemy includes, “...the rulers, the powers, the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (v. 12).
Ephesians 6:10-13 is the most explicit reference to the Christian’s struggle against evil forces that we have in the Bible. It cannot be any clearer than this! There is no real way to tell if Paul is describing an authority structure within the demonic realm, but it does seem that way from everything else I read in the Bible. Let me begin by sharing five things that we know about angels from the Bible:
- Angels are spirit beings that possess personhood, created for the glory of God (Ps. 148:2-5), and are a part of the created order (see also Job. 38:4-7; Isa. 6:2-4; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:14; 12:22; Rev. 4:8).
- Angels are temporarily above man but will be subject to judgment by Jesus’ church at the judgment (1 Cor. 6:2-3). Meanwhile they are unusually strong, swift and intelligent, and can take the appearance of man (see Ps. 103:20; Dan. 9:21; Ezek. 28:12; 1 Pet. 1:11-12; Gen. 18:1-3; Mk. 16:5).
- Angels are limited in ways that man is not. Angels cannot marry, man can (Matt. 22:30; 19:4-6); angels cannot experience redemption, man can (2 Pet. 2:4; Rom. 5); angels are created as angelic beings while man is created in the image of God (Ps. 148:2-5; Gen. 1:27).
- Angels possess personhood: intellect, emotion, and will (emotion: 1 Pet. 1:12; intellect: 1 Pet. 1:12; will: Jude 6).
- Angels seem to be ranked by authority (1 Thess. 4:16; Jude 9; Rev. 12:7; Eph. 6:12; Col. 1:16; Isa. 6:2; Ezek. 28:14). Lucifer was God’s guardian cherub (Ezek. 28:12-17) who seems to have out ranked all the other angels, there is at least one archangel (1 Thess. 4:16; Jude 1:9), cherubim (Gen. 3:24; Ezek. 10:1-22), seraphim (Isa. 6:2-3), and a multitude of angels (Rev. 5:11ff).
We are told that the there was a war in heaven; the timeframe of when the war happened is unclear. I believe the war happened sometime between creation and Genesis 3 when we are first introduced to Satan as the serpent. The angels who sided with Lucifer (the dragon) are now known as demons. Here is what we read in Revelation 12:7-9, “And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, and they did not prevail, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him” (Rev. 12:7–9).
The rulers, powers, world forces of darkness, and spiritual forces of wickedness are those angels who sided with Satan in his war against God. Although Satan is only one demon who cannot be in more than one place at a time, he has command over millions of demons who obey his every command. Our enemy is spiritual, our enemy is strategic, and our enemy is satanic. Our enemy is very real and although limited, they are capable of the following:
- Demons can provide superhuman strength to the victims they possess (Mark 5:1-20; Acts 19:16).
- They have the same capability that angels have in that physical barriers cannot restrict them (Mark 5:9-13; Dan. 9:21-23; 10:10-14).
- Demons can physically harm, oppress, and possess humans (see Matt. 9:32-33; 12:22; 17:15; John 13:21-30; Acts 16:16-18; 19:11-16).
- Behind every idol, false teaching, and anything that is against Christ are demons (1 Cor. 10:14-22; Gal. 4:3-9).
- Demons can influence nations, world leaders, and governing authorities (read the books of Daniel and Revelation as an example).
It is good to have a right and biblical understanding of demons, but you must also understand that the Bible teaches us that they have no power over the Christian because of our relationship with Jesus who redeemed us! If there is any bit of anxiety in what you have just heard about the demonic, consider what Colossians 2:13-15 promises:
And when you were dead in your wrongdoings and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our wrongdoings, having canceled the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him. (Col. 2:13–15)
Our Fight is Direct, Dangerous, and Dogged
Jesus did indeed disarm the rulers and authorities through His sacrifice upon the cross and His triumph over the grave with His resurrection. However, we are warned that we are still in a fight, and that our fight is with the demonic forces that stand opposed to God. In this fight, we are to stand strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might by putting on the full armor of God.
Our fight is a struggle; the Greek word that we get the word “struggle” (πάλη) from is a word used to describe the kind of fight that comes in the form of close hand-to-hand combat. The point is that we must be prepared for the enemy’s attacks from afar or up close, and the enemy brings his fight against us in all shapes and sizes! It comes in the form of slander, false teaching, and the temptation to sin. Our fight can come in the form doubt, depression, and deception. Our struggle can be with the temptation to sin against God and others. The battle can come in the form of persecution from friends, family, or state authorities.
The evil day includes a greater evil that is coming, but it also includes any day you find yourself face to face with the enemy’s attacks or find yourself in his crosshairs from a distance. The evil day will be the final cataclysmic satanic attack that will come just before Jesus’ second coming. The evil day is your entire life as a Christian from new birth to physical death. The evil day includes those days in the Christian life when the onslaught of the enemy seems the strongest. The evil day are those days when the temptation to sin is more of a struggle than usual. So, Christian, how will you resist in the evil day? You do so by taking up the only help available to you that has been provided by God Himself: Take up the full armor of God. The three imperatives of Ephesians 6:10-13 are as follows:
- Be strong in the Lord and the strength of His might.
- Put on the full armor of God.
- Take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist on the evil day.
When you have done everything to put on the full armor of God, only then can you stand firm.
- Stand firm with and in all of God’s truth. His truth is the only truth that matters.
- Stand firm with the breastplate of Christ’s righteousness. All of Christ’s righteousness is now your righteousness.
- Stand firm in the peace of God as a beneficiary of His mercy. You are a child of God almighty.
- Stand firm with a shield of faith, saturated by the water of the word of God. God is infinitely bigger than all your problems, but you will not know that unless you receive it from His word.
- Stand firm with the helmet of salvation, which is the assurance that you belong to the One who chose you, redeemed you, and sealed you with His Holy Spirit. What can man do to you ultimately when the God of Life is for you?
- Stand firm with the ability to handle the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. You have the Word of God that is the authority of God who is able to change lives.
